Source: Beta

Belgrade, April 27, 2022. – The Asylum Protection Center (APC) summed up today that it is necessary to speed up the issuance of decision on granting temporary protected status to the Ukrainian refugees who have residence registration in Serbia and expressed concern over the slow response of the Asylum Office about this matter, as they consider. 

‘We are also concerned about the non-issuance of temporary protected status identity cards to Ukrainians. The refugees from Ukraine do not receive the temporary protected status automatically, just by arriving and staying in Serbia. They need to register, submit a request, receive a decision on granting the temporary protected status and an identity card for temporary protected persons. Until last week, we did not record that Ukrainians managed to submit requests for the temporary protected status after registration, nor that the Asylum Office handed people decisions on the temporary protected status, nor that they handed them identity cards for persons who got the temporary protected status.’ it is stated in the announcement.

That non-governmental organization added that without identity cards and a positive decision, there is no question that these people can exercise their rights according to the law and the Government’s decision on the temporary protected status of displaced people from Ukraine in Serbia.

‘The institutions simply do not recognize that they have the temporary protected status in Serbia, and without a decision and an identity card, Ukrainians cannot exercise any rights from the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection. This means that there is no health care, no education for children, no right to work …’, it is added.

The announcement also states that the neighboring countries are much faster and more agile than Serbia, so Hungary granted 17,690 temporary protected status, Slovenia 1,225 and Croatia more than 4,000 temporary protected status, out of the total number of Ukrainians who came to that country.

‘We see the solution for the red tape in submitting a request for the temporary protected status when registering the intention to seek it. Then the Asylum Office should automatically make positive decisions about the temporary protected status and issue identity cards, as well as to deliver them to refugees within a few days, and to do it in the same police stations where people registered their intention to seek the temporary protected status. Another solution is for the Asylum Office to establish a point for submitting requests for the temporary protected status and issuing decisions on that, and where it would hand out positive decisions to refugees from Ukraine on the temporary protected status and identity cards for the temporary protected persons’, it is added.